


Immortals

by thevoiceoflightcity



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who: Virgin New Adventures - Various Authors, The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Agender Character, Angst, Canon Nonbinary Character, Character Study, Crossover, Eldritch Abdominations, Gen, Looms, Lots of it, Nonbinary Character, The Cartmel Masterplan, [nick fury voice] i understand that the canon has made a decision, actually, as usual, but given that it is a stupid-ass decision, except that it's the Endless that are a bit eldritch this time around, have i mentioned i have a thing for incomprehensible monstrosities from the dawn of time, i have elected to ignore it, instead of the dr, mostly in chapter three, with dream and seven
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-12 01:22:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7914889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thevoiceoflightcity/pseuds/thevoiceoflightcity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor (Theta Sigma, Oncoming Storm, Time’s Champion, the Last of the Time Lords, they of the silver tongue and many names) meets each of the Endless (who are older than stars and gods and galaxies) in turn. They talk. That's it; that's the fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part one: destiny

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. English is not my first language, so please tell me if I've made weird mistakes, or put American English where it shouldn't be.  
> 2\. The Doctor is canonically nonbinary (fight me I have citations) and this fic uses they/them pronouns accordingly.   
> Otherwise, exactly what it says on the tin.

Theta Sigma is scared.

That much, at least, is undeniable, no matter how much they hate it. They're too young, too strange, too clever by half - and they are very, very scared.

It was a stupid idea - they _know_ that, they’re not that naive, just - stupid. Stupid idea, but they’re young and angry and they had to get out of the Academy or they would have exploded. It was all right in Cadon, on the slopes. They could always figure out a way to trick Badger into letting them out. They always managed to get into the red grass, in the end, and then they'd run along the hills and watch the stars glow against the transduction-barrier-red and they could almost pretend they were free, for a while. The Academy is different. In the Academy the only release is building nonsense machines and pulling pranks on Borusa with the Deca and - sometimes - stupid ideas. Like breaking into the Matrix.

The Matrix, where all the long-dead live. The Matrix, a maze that’s bigger on the inside and is never the same twice. The Matrix, which they hate enough when it’s just at the back of their head (hanging low and icy, always listening, always watching, always there.) The Matrix, where ghosts guard ghost-prophets, where nobody ever goes, or nobody ever comes back. The Matrix, which they walk through alone and it’s getting darker and darker and they could swear the walls - which should be stone or block-transfer-steel - have turned into _brick_ -

(They wish Koschei were here.)

Sneaking into places you shouldn’t be in isn’t half as fun alone, is the thing. But they couldn’t ask anyone else to come with them - that’s not true. Okay, so they could, but when they told Ushas she sniffed and said she didn’t want to come watch them sulk about their “boyfriend problems” and see if they’d ever invite _her_ on any adventures again. Vansell was busy plotting, Millennia and Rallon were probably snogging, and they didn’t feel like tracking down Drax or Magnus or Mortimus. Not today. Koschei -

Koschei’s different, these last few spans, talking about the traps of the elder generations, about revolutions and escapes and bass lines under the skin of the universe. There was a fight, snarled words and furious mind-projection and hard eyes, so Theta escaped - sneaked off to the Matrix alone -

\- and lost track of time.

That means more than it sounds. A lot more. They were walking, absently counting steps, through half-dark corridors - thinking about drums, and escape, and the stars reflected in the Cadonflood - and then they realized.

they don’t know how long they’ve been here. (they’ve lost track of _time_ -)

A _Time Lord_ , not yet full-grown but halfway through the Academy, nearly eighty years old - a Time Lord, who can feel the seconds tick by one by one, who can taste the moments disappear behind the stars in ways no primitive will ever understand - a Time Lord, and they lost track.

So they wander through endless high-ceiling corridors, barely breathing, wavering on the edge of respiratory bypass out of pure fear. There's rustles in the corners and things glinting in the false-seeming moonlight and they spin, sudden, terrified, but there's nothing there - eyes glowing soft-blank-pale, but not even loomborn senses can make anything out in this untamed dark.  They think it's getting darker, but they keep going, try to be cold - a Time Lord does not show fear - even when the last lights give out, when it goes dark for good.

The ground is hard under their bare feet, like steel or ice or bone. They're almost scared to reach for the wall in case it's warm and moist and gives under their fingers. There's another rustle behind them, but they do not turn this time - they keep marching, trying not to think about - Sliders, and other, ancient things, trapped and turned by the Matrix.

They nearly stumble over something that feels like a tree root, though that should be impossible, but when their hands slam onto the floor it's cold iron. Somewhere in the distance, they realize, even the screams of the Sliders have stopped.

Theta Sigma chokes on the dusty air, gasps a reluctant breath, blinking furiously. They need to calm down. The Matrix is endless, but it’s a dimensionally-transcendent endless and so a relatively small infinity. Besides, the Sliders were meant as a defense against intruders, and they’re not _really_ an intruder - maybe the Wraiths’ll just kick them out, instead of plugging them in. Or maybe not. Oh, Rassilon, they really shouldn’t have come here - they don’t _like_ the Matrix, they don’t like the idea of going there when they die, of being strung-out and half-asleep and waiting again (again?)

If they squint, they think they can see stars. They like stars. Points of light against the dark-blue sky, and two crescent moons, facing each other like great eyes. That's impossible, even for Gallifrey, because of suns and light angles, but it doesn't matter because it's all their imagination anyway. They frown, blink. Is it?

...They're beautiful stars.

The maze opens, eventually, a cool breeze floating across grassy meadow scattered with strange unidentifiable statues, moonlight turning everything into silver sketches. Somewhere in that direction a stream burbles quietly; somewhere in the opposite direction are buildings, ancient shadows against the sky. Not it that matters; they can’t leave their path.

No, wait. When did that become a certainty? A thing that's realer than real, the only fact in a world that ... wavers …

_Yes. You are here; so it is written._

Theta Sigma whirls around, hair full of cobwebs, eyes dark and wide under the sky (that matches no starscape they’ve ever seen, and chronarchs are trained to identity any point in time and space by the stars - )

The figure walking on the grass is quite definitely not a Time Lord, or even Gallifreyan at all. (It doesn’t feel like it. In Theta’s head.) It’s wearing robes, but they aren’t Time Lord robes either - they give nothing away, no house, no chapter, no status. There is a book chained to its arm with thick iron shackles, or maybe it's chained to the book. The hood of the robe drapes over its face, leaving only shadows behind. And it looks - a dimension up, in timesight - it looks almost like a primitive. Dark and empty and mindblind - but there’s something else behind that, almost a glow, a hint of power hidden.

"Who are you?" asks Theta, voice higher than they would have liked. (They don’t realize it, but they are still walking, tracing the whorls in the path with their feet.)

 _I am Destiny of the Endless. You are Theta Sigma of the Time Lords._ It doesn't even sound like a voice - more like the whispering of wind, the hush of page on page, the crackling of dried leaves. Ancient ink. The smell of dust after rain. And it's perfect Gallifreyan, a language no primitive has ever learned.

Theta can't quite seem to think. "How did I get here?"

_All mazes are one in Destiny's garden._

"Who are - are you an Eternal? Is that what this place is?" Theta’s eyes dart back and forth, asking desperate questions. Something about this maze disarms them; the words spill out freely like water or blood.

_We are the Endless. We are not gods._

"That doesn’t mean anything!"

_We are Seven who have always been, and always will be. You will meet all of us in turn, Theta Sigma of the Many Names. So it is written._

Theta pulls themself together. Things they've learned, that have been beaten into them over long hours of classes - even if they spent most of it staring into space. Figure it out. Analyze. Find a solution. Their eyes narrow. “Written where?”

_In the Book._

They blink. "That book?" 

_Destiny carries a Book. In that Book is written the Universe, beginning to end, all timelines, new or old or yet to come._

"That's not - nobody can see ahead to new timelines,” they announce disparagingly. “That’s ridiculous. Even _we_  can't do that. That's the twelfth dimension.”

_Nevertheless, it is true._

"No, you're just - you're just a primitive."

Destiny considers, or appears to consider. Its fingers trace words on the page, quietly, with a sound like leaves in the wind.

_Theta Sigma is scared._

_That much, at least, is undeniable, no matter how much they hate it. They’re too young and too strange and too clever by half - and they are very, very scared._

_It was a stupid idea - they know that, they’re not that naive, just - stupid. Stupid idea, but they’re young and angry and they had to get out of the Academy or they would have -_

There’s a ragged awful breath, and then " _Stop it!_ "

The maze is silent as deep space, just Theta Sigma's footsteps against the old stone. The grey figure makes no sound at all.

Theta swallows. "You're not a - a god?" The word is sour on their tongue, ridiculous, a primitive thing. There are societies out there that worship Gallifrey, the Time Lords, they know that, sacrifice their own people to the seal of Rassilon. Gallifrey herself has never had gods, just the Menti Celesti, and nobody prays to Time and Death and Pain - the general consensus being that they can't hear it, and even if they could they wouldn't care.

_No._

Then something else. A flicker in their eyes, like curiosity. "Everything? All the Spiral Politic? Beginning to end?"

_Yes._

Theta's eyes are bright and sharp and deep. Koschei may be mad - though nobody knows it, not now - but so is Theta Sigma, in their own way. It's a wilder madness, something stranger and older, the pull of distant stars.

"Can I see?"

The figure shows no shock, is not offended. Destiny of the Endless simply turns its head, looking at the young Time Lord with blank white eyes.

 _Because of the Schism,_ Destiny whispers. It is not a question.

"The Untempered Schism," breathes Theta Sigma. "It shows you everything. Not just the Vortex, everyone can see history, but _Inner_ Time - _everything._  That’s what they tell you. What they don’t tell you is that your own personal future is in there too. Regardless of paradoxes and fiddling with biodata. I saw something there." They speak softly but reverently, like they’re reciting a poem, something they’ve composed in their head over years. "Something - something I had to tell everyone, something huge and terrifying, but something beautiful too. And I don't remember what it was. Nobody remembers what they see in the Schism. But it's still there anyway." They close their eyes. "I might never know what it is, but it coils at the base of my spine like a fever and a hurricane, and all I want to do is run away - run anywhere, everywhere, and maybe if I run fast enough it won’t happen, maybe I can laugh and see the Universe and stay myself. Maybe I won’t have to turn into that." They pause. "You know everything?"

_All that was, and will be, and all that was not anymore._

"Okay. Right." And they ask again, young and too clever for their own good: "Can I see?"

Destiny stops.

And Theta Sigma stops, too, in the gathering mist. They stop walking the wireframe ways of Destiny's garden, and they feel time slow around them, the universe holding its breath. This is not a simple common-or-garden time-stop - this is their entire timeline, freezing in place. They gasp from the shock of it - 

\- and then they stumble forward onto cold dew-wet grass and it's  _gone._ They spin but they can't see it - the path, the maze, the garden, is still there, but it's empty. It has no substance, no timeline, no reality. It's meaning, and nothing else. 

They turn to Destiny.

"How will I get out of here?"

_The Cloister-wraiths will show you the way out._

They smile, relieved. "Thank you."

_You need not thank me. I did not make it so._

They frown. "But you - "

_I said that it will be. This is true. It is written. Do you understand?_

Theta Sigma is close now, and close up, there is no possibility of ever mistaking Destiny for a primitive, for anything other than what it is. Power - Time - rolls off it in waves, a taste like ice and stone. They squint; something occurs to them. "You're a meaning-construct! Aren't you? Made of symbolism?"

_No._

"...Oh."

_But close._

Destiny turns a page in the Book; Theta leans forward, can't seem to help it, eyes glowing in the moonlight - 

\- and then something occurs to them; they frown - "Hang on, if this is out of timespace, will I even remember - " 

 

 

 

Their eyes flicker downward. They never finish the sentence.

Theta Sigma of the Time Lords looks at the Book, and gasps, and then there is _light._

(When they make it out, they’re halfway across the city and it’s four days later than when they walked in. Borusa projects {anger}{disappointment}{seriously??} at them, tells them they’re lucky they ever made it out, and locks them in their room at night for the next three spans.)

(They do not remember the Book for a long, long time.)


	2. part six: desire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Desire has absolutely nothing to do with romantic love, which is a side of it I don't think we see enough. Not sure how I feel about this bit. Oh well.  
>   
> Some clarification: as in part one, I have used a lot of Lungbarrow here, but other bits - in the long tradition of fanfic writers - I have blithely ignored. [nick fury voice] I recognize that the canon has made a decision, but given that it is a _stupid-ass_ decision, I have elected to ignore it.  
>   
>  um. Anyway. Point is, in my version of canon, Susan isn’t the Other’s granddaughter; she was loomed in a closet by teenage Theta and Koschei, sort of by accident. It’s not really relevant to this fic though, so don’t worry about it.  
> 

Theta’s old. 

That isn’t _true_. They’re barely out of the Academy, really, a few centuries old at the most. Still in their first regeneration. Then again, physical age, in Time Lords (and indeed all the regenerative castes) is linked less to how much actual linear time you’ve endured than to how how old you _feel_. Thus it’s possible to go from new-Loomed to white-haired in less than a century, and also possible to stay in stasis for millennia, barring accident. And it works the other way around, too.

That’s the problem with living in an old body, in the end; you feel like you’ve lived, when really you haven’t. 

Well, then; if not old, then adult, more or less. They’ve grown, they’ve learned, they’ve become respectable (almost. Mostly. Well, _nearly._ ) They made it out of the Matrix forever ago - barely remember that escapade among hundreds. Oh, little Theta Sigma was a strange Time Lord, always ready with some new trick or adventure to infuriate professors and scandalize Cousins, eyes sharp and fever-bright. The things they used to get up to, with the Deca - them and Koschei built a Loom in their room once, and they still smile at the thought of Borusa’s face when he found out - 

That adventure at least ended well. Their hearts warm at the thought of her - their Arkytior. Their Rose. They nearly smile, thinking - She’s seven years old, now - and then the urge to smile disappears, barely a few spans off the Untempered Schism, and she’ll – she’ll – the Untempered Schism, it can - but, no, not today, not now. They’ll - they’ll figure something out, she’ll be fine. (She’ll be wonderful.)

Then they do smile. They’re supposed to be happy, after all. 

Or maybe happy is the wrong word. Content?

That isn’t true either, not really. There’s something else, under it all. Under the calcification of the growing Time Lord, under the ice and indifference and superiority they draw around themself like a cloak, as they were taught to do; a flicker, an irritation, a half-forgotten { _wantfearwant_ }. A spring coiled at the base of their spine.

Gallifreyans have always had something like precognition; not true future-sight, not anymore, but traces. In Dark Times, the sibylline Pythia prophet-queen would spin truth from the dust, and even now the Matrix calculates and twists and predicts, but individuals see it too. Events leave scars, signs carved into timespace, and if you’re lucky and clever and time-sensitive you can catch the ripples. You can guess. You can prepare. 

And they can feel it. Now, since the Schism, maybe forever. A whisper, a lie, a clue. Something’s coming. 

And they’ve asked; nobody else feels it. Whatever it is, it’s just them. Them, and the Storm. 

(They didn't ask Koschei - Koschei, who calls himself the Master now, scares them a little. They don't recognize their Koschei in those eyes anymore, and not because of the regeneration.)

They shiver slightly as they stare out of the glass dome over the red-rock landscape, drawing their robes tighter around them. They’re on the edge of the Capitol, where the glass walls rise out of the ground, keeping the Outside out. They’re… 

... _why_ are they here? 

They frown, glancing around them. They must have had some reason, they can’t just have wandered over here - Time Lords don’t _forget_ \- they must have wanted something - 

_#That’d be me.#_

They freeze. 

The voice is smooth and sharp-edged, like the purr of a wild Outside cat (and just as poisonous,) sweet and tawny as yellow wine, a smile like a blade, a smell like summer peaches. It’s not the voice of a Gallifreyan; too nonstandard, too strange, something subtly and irrevocably _off_ about it, something dangerous, something wonderful - but that’s not supposed to _happen_ , there are no primitives on Gallifrey, there never have been, that’s what the time-shift and the transduction barriers are for. Except that it’s not the voice of a lesser being, either - there's something impossible about it, words that are more than words. A purring knife-edge double timbre like dark and razors and kisses and the sweet-sour taste of stable-paradox at the back of your throat.

(A sudden thought, sharp and exact and unfamiliar: everything they have ever wanted. _Everything._ )

_#Cat got your tongue?#_

Theta turns, slowly, hearts beating a little faster than they should - they toggle down their heartsrate, trying not to go into respiratory bypass. The source of the voice is standing next to them, leaning against the wall, smile dancing on eir lips. “Sorry?” they manage, take a breath with an effort of will. 

_#Oh,#_ sighs the figure, _#is that the best you can do?#_ The voice sounds almost disappointed with them, like they haven’t lived up to expectations. It’s a tone they’re familiar with, but not like this, not from this - person. 

They manage to rip away their eyes from that golden gaze, blinking furiously. There’s something about the figure that’s hard to pin down - always shifting, a mass of conflicting messages. They can’t quite focus on em, eyes slipping off eir face, and every time they look back at the figure ey’s imperceptibly different. Ey’s… eir robes are yellow, as far as they can tell, the same artron-gold color as eir eyes, but they can’t make out anything more than that; no insignia, no chapter colors, nothing. Ey’s not even projecting any identifiers. The figure could be _shobogan,_ for all they know. They just can’t _tell_. Completely casteless. They can’t manage to pin down the color of eir hair, eir skin - just those eyes.

And shift of it all, in timesight, ey glows with a half-light they’ve only seen once before. 

_#I am Desire, #_ the golden thing declares, _#and no, it’s not ey, it’s it.#_ The smile flickers across its face again. _#And who are you?#_

They open their mouth, but suddenly its finger is on their mouth, yellow eyes glinting with something like amusement. _#Shh, clever one. You’re much better off when you keep your mouth shut, you know, Theta Sigma.#_

They swallow. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

 _#Of course you know me,#_ it purrs. _#Everyone knows us, whether they know it or not.#_

And then they _remember_ \- 

“Desire? Desire of the Endless?”

It pulls back, sudden sharp, eyes narrowing. _#How do you know that, Time Lord?#_

"I think I may have met one of your...kind...before." The memory is foggy, a fragment of unattached truth with no context, no beginning or end. There was a maze, and a place with impossible stars -

 _# Who?#_ it hisses. 

“A man carrying - chained to a book?” they try, memories scrolling back. “I’m - “

It sighs, cutting them off. _#Darling brother Destiny. So boring it’s tragic. I suppose he told you all about his book and the universe?#_

“I suppose - “

 _#Shall I tell you a secret?#_ it breathes, suddenly very close, smile flashing like strobe lights. _#Would you like to know what the universe runs on? What’s in his book?#_ Its smiles are wolf-smiles, with too many teeth in them. 

“I,” says Theta, and then, some half-forgotten memory flaring, “...Yes.”

 _#Would you really,#_ says Desire, and then, _#Well, I won’t.#_

“...I’m sorry?”

 _#Tell you. Honestly, is that all you can do, repeat things and say ‘sorry?’ Is it that hard to grasp?#_ it sighs. _#Do you know_ why _I won’t tell you, clever one?#_

“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” they snap, feeling rather attacked. “Who _are_ you? Who are the Endless, hmm? What are you pestering me for?”

Desire grins, a wider thing than its smiles, but just as dangerous. _#Ooh, have I hurt your feelings? The reason I won’t tell you, Theta Sigma, is that you were lying.#_

They blink, disarmed. “Lying?”

 _#See what I mean about the repeating?#_ it notes, and then _#Lying. You don’t really want to know what the universe is. What it’s made of. You barely even want to know who I am. What you really want,#_ they breathe - and they know what’s coming, briefly wonder if they can get their hands over their ears in time, or render themself briefly deaf - _#is to know what_ you _are.#_

_#You want to know what you saw in the Schism. And that - unlike you, I’m afraid - is interesting.#_

“Excuse me?” they interject, insulted. It ignores them. 

_#Fear is a kind of wanting, you know. Desire to make it stop, to run away, to never come back. Do you want to see the universe, Theta, or do you hope that if you scatter yourself across the timelines, along a billion worlds, that you'll escape whatever's in the future? Or is it both?#_

“I don’t understand!”

_#It doesn’t matter. I could tell you what you’re running from, you know, clever one.#_

They’re frozen, backed up against the wall, scrambling for a foothold on a sheer cliff of nothing and confusion and wanthatewant. And that’s the one thing they’re sure of; they want to know. They want to know so badly. They want to run. 

It smiles at that, mouth ever so slightly open, tasting the desire - tasting itself in the air. _#I could. But I won’t.#_

They stutter, can’t manage anything beyond a desperate “Please.” They’re not even sure what they’re asking for. 

_#Oh, yes, I could,#_ breathes Desire. _#But then you’d stop wanting it. And where would be the fun in that?#_

They don’t say anything at all. Neither does the yellow-eyed thing in front of them, utterly still, not even breathing, head tilted ever so slightly to one side. 

_#Of course, I could be lying. Honesty doesn’t have much to do with Desire. You’re a story more than anything else, clever one, and that’s never been my territory. It’ll happen tomorrow, you know.#_

“What?” says Theta, as huffily as they can manage, attempting to remember how to breathe. 

_#Steal a TARDIS and run away, of course,#_ it purrs. _#What you’ve been wanting to do since you were eight. What did you think?#_

They almost ask _why would i do that,_ and then Arkytior and the Hand of Omega and a million other things crash into them at once. More than that. They _want_ it, all the hopes and fears they buried over long years of crystallisation at the Academy; everything they dreamed of, coming back, just as painfully sharp-spark as it was that first day.

 _#You’re supposed to make something of an impact later on, but you are a bit boring for that, aren’t you?#_ hums Desire, looking at them appraisingly. _#Perhaps I’ll have to come back later. Or maybe Arkytior will teach you some sense.#_ And then it turns, elegantly, flashing a last razor grin back at them, and starts walking. (It casts two shadows.) They stare after it, open-mouthed, for a moment. 

“Wait - “

It stops. Half-turns. _#Hmm?#_

“What manner of thing are the Endless? Who - who _are_ you?”

 _#Oh, Theta,#_ it sighs. _#We're not a race. The Endless are patterns. Ideas. Wave functions. We’re repeating motifs, that’s all. We’re_ forever, _as long as forever lasts.#_

They blink - and it's gone, nothing but the empty silver air, and a strobe-light-and-gold smile fading out of existence.

 _#It's in the name, clever one,#_ echoes back at them, and then there's nothing.


	3. part three: dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's longer than the others. A lot longer. Oops I really like seven.  
>   
> Also, yes the Lungbarrow quote is real. I was rereading the beginning for reference, found the 'which some had found the cousin to death' (no but if we're talking Loom Cousins that's basically _right_ and absolutely fascinating) had to put it in somehow. I did change the pronouns to they/them, which maybe I shouldn't have, but the discrepancy was annoying me.

The thing with the umbrella is consulting with a native at edge of the sand. The native is wearing something like aluminum foil plate armor, designed to reflect nearly all heat. The thing is wearing a white fedora. It’s hard to make out what they’re saying, either of the figures, through the heat-waves and the distance. The thing smiles at the native, eyes sharp and ice-blue. Tips their hat. 

They walk into the desert alone, drawing a perfect line of footsteps over the sand to the horizon. The native watches them for a while, biting her lip, but they do not stumble or stop or even look back, just march on briskly away across the dunes. 

She rubs her frills. Hisses her uncertainty and frustration. Hesitates. Turns away and slinks back to the spaceport. 

The thing keeps walking. 

[=time=]

The Doctor blinks. 

They’re somewhere in the desert, that much is certain. _Which_ desert is a little harder to work out. It’s big, and sandy, and rather cold at night. 

Right now, it’s either dawn or dusk. The light is coming from their right, but they’re not sure whether that’s east or west. Probably dusk. It’s too warm for dawn. 

“This is rather more disorienting than I had expected,” says the Doctor to the air, pleasantly. The air does not respond. Neither do the dunes, curving up to meet the sky above. 

They sigh, and set off again. 

[=time=] 

They’re getting the feeling that the desert doesn’t like them. The sand sucks at their shoes and the dunes try to shake them off their backs and the wind blows straight into their face whichever way they turn. Luckily, they’re not particularly thirsty yet; the twilight is cool, and they’re almost certain it’s still the first twilight, too. 

“I’m not leaving,” they tell a particularly annoying sand-hill after it’s managed to twice collapse in such a way that they roll all the way back down. “And I don’t think you can just turn me around back where I came from, either. Not unless I want to get out. And I don’t.”

Something moves in the corner of his eyes. They spin around, suddenly alert, but it’s just a desert hare - sand-colored, like everything else - staring at them with inquisitive black eyes. They get the feeling it’s never seen a humanoid before. Curiously enough, though, it looks almost identical to an Earth cape hare, which means that either somebody’s been illegally importing to this planet or they’re not on the same planet anymore. 

“I want to speak to your master,” they say to the hare. It blinks at them once and then disappears under a scrawny-looking patch of grass. 

[=time=]

The first people they meet aren’t what they’re looking for, but quite interesting nonetheless. 

The wind has picked up when they meet the army, and they’re holding on to their hat as they reach the top of a dune. They didn’t know the people were there for the same reason - they would have heard the people coming, if it weren’t for the desolate whine of the wind. It’s almost a parade, a line of horsemen with flags and armor making their way through the desert. They look like they used to be a great and thundering army - Hannibal’s maybe, minus the elephants, or Napoleon going over the Alps - but now the horses stagger along slowly, and the men walk on worn-out shoes, or barefoot, leaving bloody footprints in the sand.

They stay there until the people spot them, high on the ridge, silhouetted against the sky (still dusk or dawn, and they still haven’t decided which it is.)

There’s a great shout when the army sees them, and they come sauntering down the side of the dune as the people turn around to look at them, many eyes exhausted and lost and frightened. They smile at them all, which doesn’t seem to help.

“Why are you here in this place of demons, wanderer?” asks one of them, probably the leader, judging by the faded feathers in his cap. The Doctor notes, quietly, that he’s very nearly transparent - all of them are, like ghosts or shadows. “Are you lost? Are you also a demon?”

“I’m not a demon,” the Doctor tells the crowd. “I’m not really lost either.”

“Do you know the way that leads out of this endless desert?”

The smile drops. “What desert is this, then?”

The man squints at them, but seems too tired to ask. “The Arabian wastes, of course.”

“And to think I walked in on a planet seventy-five hundred light years away from Arabia or indeed that solar system,” they muse. “And no, I don’t know the way any more than you do, I’m afraid.”

“We are seeking the lord of this place. We wish to ask him to release us.”

“So am I, actually, for rather different reasons. You’re looking for a way out. I’m looking for a way in.”

The man draws back. “You would stay in this shifting hell?”

“No. But I have some questions.”

The man sighs. Or it could be one of the other soldiers; it’s hard to tell them apart, even for the Doctor. “We too have questions. Will we ever reach our world again? And if we do, will we live on, or will all the years of wandering make dust of us?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor says, which is true.

The man looks at them, really looks at them. “Are you perhaps the Lord of this place, or one of his servants, in disguise?”

“No.” They soften a little. “You think I’m not human, and you’re right, but this place is as alien to me as it is to you. Probably a little more.” 

The man bows his head.The Doctor tips their hat and grins a rather unsettling grin. 

The ghost riders set off again slowly, and they watch the army go. “The interesting thing, though, is that I quite definitely haven’t transmatted. I would have felt that. And I don’t think you have either. We’re both still on our separate planets, aren’t we? But the normal barriers that don’t allow communication between those places - the laws of physics in general, I should think - have gone soft.”

They turn. “I’m getting a bit bored,” they tell the sky. It doesn’t react either.

[=time=]

They’re heading to a sort of rocky outcrop - there’s lots of rocks around, but this specific one looks almost familiar. It’s not that it’s important, but if they pick a destination they feel like they’re getting somewhere. 

They round a hill, look down - in the shadow of the outcrop there seem to be caves. Caves usually have interesting things in. They scan the crumbling rock for the easiest way down. 

Then they realize _why_ the formation looks familiar. 

“Oh, no,” they mumble. “That’s clever, but no. There’s a spaceship over there, behind that rock, isn’t there? And any moment somebody will come running out, looking for a queen bat, and that somebody will be me?”

They glance up at the sky again, at whatever, whoever’s watching. “You thought I wouldn’t realize? I _died_ here once. This is Androzani.”

[=time=]

They recognize Kaldor quicker, now that they’re ready for it. The sand-miners are rather distinctive, after all.

“It’s not going to work,” they tell the sky. “I wish to talk to you. I understand that you may not like being summoned, but I’m asking you nicely, look.” They wait for a second, putting on their best hopeful face. “No? Not even if I say please?”

Nothing.

[=time=]

There is a tent in the shadow of a sand dune. (They’re getting sick of even _thinking_ the word sand. Maybe they should replace it with something else. Something interesting. Sugar. Plastic. Cyanide.) 

They walk down the cyanide dune carefully. The tent is too much like every other tent they’ve ever seen for them to decide whether it’s familiar or not. Maybe the person they’re looking for lives here. 

In a tent. In the middle of nowhere. 

...Well, it could happen. 

They step into the tent. It’s dark, and larger than it should be, their footsteps almost echoing in the emptiness. 

They take another step, and suddenly there is light, more or less, coming from a candle in the corner of the room - and in front of them there’s a bed and a table, and there is a girl with short dark hair lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The girl is, to timesight, glowing; a soft golden light that says _you are not alone._

They do not move. They do not even breathe. They recognize the place now, no matter how young they were at the time; this was all the way back at the beginning, in the Gobi Desert, with Marco Polo and Ian and Barbara and - 

The girl on the bed yawns, closes her eyes. “Grandfather, is that you?” She reaches out with one hand, offering it to them - and they know what that means, they remember the nervous whisper of her thoughts against theirs. That was their comfort, them and Arkytior, after they cut themselves away from Gallifrey and the Matrix with it. They were all the company they needed. 

“No,” the Doctor says. “No, Susan, I’m sorry.” But before she can look up, before she can recognize that their voice is different but they still feel like her grandfather in her head, and what that means - 

They step backward. The tent is gone. 

“Enough,” they tell the sky, voice perfectly level. “No more tricks. No more memories. Show yourself, Lord Shaper.”

And the Lord Shaper does. 

He does not walk in over the dunes; he burns into existence like a blank paper over an open flame, the world suddenly twisting and scorching into a figure made of pure-cold darkness. He is long and tall and pale, wearing black High Council robes that flicker with flames and faces and fables, and his stare is like ice; the Prince of Stories, the Sandman, Dream of the Endless.

The dusk has finally turned into night around them. The Doctor doesn’t flinch. “Good evening.”

_**What do you want of me, Time Lord?**_ The voice is thunder on the horizon, a hum at the back of your head, the sound of secrets.

“The natives told me that people disappear into this desert, that it’s one of the last places where time and space shift around you,” the Doctor says, blue eyes glinting in the dark. “They told me I could find demons here, and gods, and older things.”

_**That is true.**_

It’s a strange picture, the two of them in the desert, under the star-speckled sky. It seems almost like a kind of game - a show played by two puppetmasters, dancing across the plain. Both of them look more or less human. Neither of them are. Not even close. 

The Doctor quiets. Drops some kind of facade, stands up straight. “You are Dream, I assume? Of the Endless?”

_**Yes.**_

“Your brother told me I would meet all seven of you, did you know?”

_**Yes.**_ The thing that is not a god pauses. _**How did you know that the Soft Places were part of the Dreaming?**_

They grin. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Dream rears his head, is suddenly many times the size of the Gallifreyan, looming like a building or a fate, the desert snapping out of focus around them. 

_**YOU PRESUME, TIME LORD,**_ the Lord Shaper snarls, his voice like thunder across the horizon. The laws of physics crack, light bending around the dark-eyed shape, his robe morphed into something longer and smoother, almost alive, his hands thin and white. The Doctor, in the shapeless place below him, staggers at some invisible attack, face pale as death. _ **I MISLIKE MEDDLERS. EVEN YOUR KIND DREAM, DOCTOR. REMEMBER THAT.**_

“ Apologies. I - “ they gasp, breath hissing between their teeth, bent over - “Please d-don’t do that.”

The Lord Dream seems to back off a little, despite not having moved. They straighten, take a slightly shaky breath. “...Thank you.”

_**I tire of this game. Ask me your questions and be gone, Doctor.**_

They straighten their hat. Pause. “...I’ve been dreaming of things.” They bite their lip in a seemingly unconscious motion, though it’s always hard to tell with their kind. “Things I can’t explain. That seem like memories, and yet they never happened.”

Dream dips his head, ever so slightly. The motion says _continue._

“I dream of war, sometimes. I dream of darkness and Daleks and silence. Other times - “ They hesitate. The Doctor does not, possibly cannot, give their secrets away easily. “I dream of being exhausted. Sick and tired of endless games and plots and diversions. Wanting nothing more than to forget everything and start over with nothing. To play the great game from the beginning.” They swallow. “It seems I am not scared, or angry, simply bored. And it is me in these dreams, not some imagined figure.” They look up. Ice-blue eyes meet the stark night of Dream’s without flinching. “Maybe these are true dreams. Maybe these are stories I’m telling myself. Either way, it’s your territory. I want to know what it means.”

The Lord Shaper’s eyes give nothing away. _**So you seek an audience. With me.**_

“Yes.”

_**You realize the sheer arrogance of this.**_

“Yes,” the Time Lord repeats. There is no hint of sarcasm or apology in their voice. 

_**They… worry you, do they not.**_ Dream does not smile, but the stars in his eyes spark with a vicious kind of humour. _**The Oncoming Storm is afraid of their own nightmares, so they come to me.**_ The scorn in his voice, regardless, is obvious. _**To me. To Nightmare itself.**_

The Doctor holds their ground, just barely. “The Endless have interfered in my lives before. Your sibling is what drove me to finally leave Gallifrey, all those years ago.”

_**I do not personally send dreams simply to unnerve mortals. Not even irritating ones.**_ His voice deepens again, snaps through the entire world like the hiss-click of gas masks in silent places. _**Now LEAVE.**_

“Wait - “

Morpheus stops mid-turn, rolls back to face the Time Lord. _**Why should I?**_

“But what do these dreams mean?” They still stand tall, but those who know them well enough (precious few, nowadays,) would hear the note of desperation in their voice. “Do you know? Desire said it knew, but it also claimed it was lying - ”

Dream of the Endless is less human than even the Time Lord, has never needed to breathe, never will. Nevertheless, the entity goes to the effort of inhaling, simply so that it can sigh longsufferingly. _**Yes. I know. I am the Dreaming, and the Dreaming is me; nothing is hidden from me here. I know everything that has ever walked here. I know you. I know the other one as well.**_

“So you - “

_**No.**_ The word carries an air of finality, like a steel door slamming down. _**You will find the answers on your own, or you will not. I do not hand out secrets to every wanderer who comes whining at my gates. Not even their own. I can excuse your arrogance, now, but I will be less kind if you walk into the Soft Places again.**_

“But - “

_**ENOUGH.**_ The Dream-King waves an absent hand, turns, and the dark around them - 

\- _flickers_ \- 

\- and the Doctor lands back in the desert with a thump and a puff of cyanide.

The Time Lord lets themself flop backward against the ground and glares at the blue sky for a while. “Show-off,” they grumble. “Pompous little - “

A clump of dirt quietly detaches itself from the ground and flies straight into their mouth. 

The Doctor splutters. 

Once they’re upright and dusted off, they realize that they’re still in the middle of the Soft Places. The Lord Shaper is going to make them walk home. Over another million dunes of bloody sand. 

Cyanide. Ugh. 

The Doctor mutters a particularly colorful word in Old High Gallifreyan and sets off. 

[=time=]

They stop a while later to rummage in their pockets and see if they can’t find something to drink somewhere in there. After a minute they realize it might take a while and sit down on the ground, a curious assemblage of items arrayed out in front of them. 

Sonic screwdriver. Library card from their first regeneration. Spare hat. Non-sonic screwdriver. An empty can of nitro-nine (at least they hope it’s empty.) A bluetooth headset they have no memory of ever acquiring. A toy car. An unidentifiable technological thing, probably a bit of the TARDIS. A yo-yo. Spoons. Spare wires for emergency fixes. A biscuit, which they promptly eat. Three sets of handcuffs. The Seal of the High Council of Gallifrey, which they thought they’d lost in the Death Zone. A Metebelis crystal. A pencil. One of Ace’s shoes, attached to a broken vortex manipulator. And, eventually, a glass of ice tea. 

“Finally,” they tell their jacket sternly, and set to work piling the stuff back in. They really should clean out their pockets someday soon, but things keep coming in useful.

They sip the iced tea and feel a little better. Generally they prefer the hot kind, but right now some ice is appreciated. “I hate deserts,” they announce to the world, eventually. “After this I shall change the TARDIS settings so she’ll treat deserts like deep space and bus stations. Empty and horrible and boring, and therefore not to be landed in.”

Why? 

The Doctor yelps and nearly drops the tea, but it’s not - who did they think it was? The entity standing on the ridge is dressed all in white, quiet curling patterns on their robe, hair white-wild and eyes dark. 

“...Sorry?”

The thing - man, maybe, but there’s something simultaneously ancient and very young about it - blinks, and though it doesn’t smile there’s a hint of something like it in its face. _**Why do you hate deserts?**_

“Er,” says the Doctor, blue eyes tracking the thing as it strolls down toward them. “Because I’ve spent far too long wandering about in this one without getting anywhere. Mostly.”

_**It isn’t really a desert. Not all the time,**_ the thing says, and gestures at the ground next to them. _ **May I sit down?**_

“Er,” says the Doctor, and wishes they could be eloquent all of the time. “Of course. Biscuit?” 

_**Thank you, but no.**_ The thing is wearing an emerald, huge and flawless, around its - their? neck, the Doctor notes. 

They sip at their tea, trying to regain some dignity. The white being just watches them.

“...Do I know you?”

_**You did, once.** _

Their eyes narrow. “What does that - oh, forget it.” They drink the last of the tea, put the mug back in their pocket and flop backwards onto the ground. “I don’t like this. I don’t like any of this.”

_**What have I done?**_ asks the creature reasonably, with a hint of confusion. 

“I feel like I’m being manipulated,” they sigh. “And even worse, I think the person doing the manipulating is me. I’ve been doing far too much of that lately.”

The thing tilts its head at them questioningly. 

“I had a quandary, so I proceeded to do what I usually do, which is immediately head to the highest authority, except the highest authority in this case was magnificently unhelpful, and the only thing he gave me was a headache,” the Doctor grumbles. 

_**You’re scared.** _

“And then he had to rub in that he knew - sorry, what?”

The creature blinks again, a smooth empty motion. _ **I told you you were afraid of your own nightmares, of the dark under the bed, but that isn’t true. Desire was right. You’re scared of what you can’t remember. You’re scared of what you were, what you’ve done, what you might become. You’re scared of yourself.**_

The Doctor does not move, does not breathe. They are an alien statue sitting in the sand; a Time Lord will not show anger or surprise or least of all fear, so they shows nothing at all. “...Dream.”

_**Yes.**_

“How did - no, I understand you can change your shape, but your mind is different. That shouldn’t be possible. The Endless can’t die, you don’t regenerate, that shouldn’t - “

_**No. And yet I am not the same Dream you met, am I.**_

The Doctor stands up rather suddenly, a motion that is too fast and exact to be human. The thing that isn’t quite the Lord Shaper doesn’t move exactly, but nevertheless it stands. “Have you been rummaging around in my head? How do you know now what you didn’t know two hours ago?”

_**You of all people should know that what constitutes two hours for you may have been any other amount of time, for me, Doctor.**_

“Answer the question,” the Doctor snarls, suddenly dangerous. The creature laughs - a sound they’d never have expected out of the dark Dream, high and bright and almost cheerful. 

_**Is it so incomprehensible? I know because I understand.**_

“You - “

_**We have more in common than the last time we met here, Doctor. I came here to think. To look for answers. So did you.** _

The Doctor opens their mouth, stops themself. “What are you implying?”

_**I am Dream of the Endless, and all that entails. I am older than stars and gods and galaxies. But I haven’t always been. Omnia mutantur, nihil interit. Do you understand?** _

“‘Everything changes, nothing is lost?’’’ The Doctor frowns. “No, I don’t actually.”

_**Something that I have learned recently. Sooner or later, you will learn it too. But on your own terms, I think.**_ Dream-in-white smiles, and his eyes - still dark as the night sky, glinting like the emerald around his neck - are kinder, perhaps, than they were.

The Doctor hesitates. Glances at the sky. “....No, I can’t ask, can I. It’s cheating.” They sigh. “And I was hoping… not that hope matters much.” Grins, wryly. “Said the Time Lord to Hope. Is this goodbye for good, then?”

_**Goodbye, Doctor.** _

The Doctor blinks. There is no thump, no flash, no shock. They are standing in front of the TARDIS doors, just where the dusty road ends in the waves of sand. 

They look back. They look at the sky. Judging by the ambient timeline fluctuations, it’s been perhaps half an hour since they left. The nice girl with the orange frills will be halfway to town by now. Chris Cwej may have finally finished his bath. 

Well. They may as well see if there’s any tea left. 

(Eighth Man Bound - they’ll figure it out. They should figure it out. And they have a feeling it’s going to be soon.)

[=time=]

_The Doctor was in the TARDIS console room, where Chris somehow knew they would be. They sat hunched in a chair, staring at the scanner screen, which was switched off. Under their jacket, they were wearing their old pullover - the one with question marks that Chris thought they'd seen the last of. He wondered if the Doctor had somehow changed into it without taking their hat off. He hoped it signalled a return to the Doctor's old indomitable self. No more worries about sudden death and regeneration._

_'The teabags have run out,' the Doctor complained without looking up._

_Chris was not in the mood to find out that someone else was worse off than he was. 'Are you having trouble sleeping?' he asked._

_'Oh sleep, that some have called the cousin to death,' the Doctor quoted unhelpfully. They shrugged without looking round. 'I wouldn't call it trouble. Why? Are you still having trouble?'_

_'Yes.'_

_'Not sleeping at all?'_

_'Yes. I mean, I sleep. It's the dreams.'_

_\- Lungbarrow_


	4. part five:despair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter than the others, but part seven: delirium's going to be a long one again.

They wake up in the Matrix again, head fuzzy and _wrong,_ senses dulled by dark and (death? have they, they can’t have, there is no artron-gold - )

No, it's not the Matrix; this is warmer, lit by torches, something on the edge of familiar. Reminds them of something. (Why can’t they think properly?) The world is made of red stone and fire and the smell of blood, the taste of War in the air, the hum of paradox machines in the distance, the roar of Neverwas and worse things, far away but so clear. There was - there was battle, and a burning ship, and -

" _Cass - !_ "

"If you refer to your companion, she is currently being extracted from the wreckage." 

A face slides into view - a face they recognize, or nearly. Their head feels almost fuzzy, thoughts disintegrating as soon as they form, their mind ragged where pieces of themself have been torn away. They frown, with some effort. "She wasn't my companion."

"She _is_ almost certainly dead. Nobody could have survived that crash." 

(don’t think about it keep going save who you can _don’t_ don’t think keep)

They blink. When in doubt, bluster, or bluff, or tell a joke. Kick them over the cliff while they’re laughing. "I did," they say eventually, trying for the old bravado.

"No. We restored you to life, but it's a temporary measure. You have a little under four minutes."

Oh. Suddenly the memory and the face snap into place - the Sisterhood of Karn. Last followers of the long-dead Pythia. Keepers of the flame of eternal boredom. Or eternal life. One of those.

They keep talking, mouth almost on autopilot - it's what they _do_ , Doctor of the silver tongue and the many names. The great meddler. They save people. They talk and they run and they gets everyone out alive. That’s who they are. That's who they have to be. 

There’s nowhere left to run, says something at the back of their head, something that is older than it should be. Give in. Let go. You don’t need to be the Doctor any more. 

They see her then, or think they see her.

 _Time and Death and Pain,_ they think, and almost laugh.

She doesn't appear; she doesn’t walk out of nothing the way Desire did, or burn into existence like dark-eyed Dream. She was always there, has always been there, all empty rooms her temples, all unspoken words her prayers. They understand, there, in the caves of Karn, why they started running, and realizes what Destiny meant all those years ago: they were only running towards her the entire time.

_this is wartime, Doctor. be a warrior._

They half-smile, not that it can be called a smile, not really. It’s a painful, bloody thing, sharp-edged and violent - the smile of a person who finally, finally understands the joke, and realizes it was on them the entire time.

(Man or woman? asks Ohila. Old or young, fast or slow, wise or angry?)

And quietly, slowly, invisibly, the Doctor breaks. 

They shatter like glass, splinter like ice, fall apart where they stand. They have spent their lives running from this, and now they’ve run far enough. They have spent their lives trying to block this out, to stay grounded, to stay human, and follow all their rules and morals and limitations that come with that name. They have spend their lives tying themself down, holding themself back, chaining themself to their friends and hoping that they will be strong enough to keep them locked up. 

They have forgotten so many things. This face, this life, was born completely innocent, completely memoryless, and that wasn’t the last time they forgot it all, but one thing stayed with them: one thing they held on to, even when everything else is gone. 

Don’t let go. Don’t let it free. Be _human._ Be small. Be powerless. And don’t, never, remember.

They have spent their entire lives denying who they are and all the things they will do. 

They were afraid. 

The fear is over now.

"Make me a warrior," they say, eyes dark and deep and utterly empty.

"Warrior?" Ohila tilts her head at them. She can see it, in their eyes, the change - doesn’t understand it, doesn’t understand that the entire universe has shifted around her, that the delicate balance of power is gone, that _they_ are here. Not that she’d care if she did - all she needs is for them to say yes.

"I don't suppose there's any need for a Doctor anymore. Make me a warrior now."

She hands them a chalice, conjures it from somewhere, steaming, burning hot-cold-hot in his hands. "I took the liberty of preparing this one myself."

"Get out," they say, toneless.

She hesitates.

" _Get out!_ " they roar, a wave of rage and pain and grief. " _All_ of you." An afterthought: "Will it hurt?"

"Yes."

"Good," they whisper, and she locks the door behind her.

Silence.

Not quite silence: there’s always the background white-noise whine that is the War, the anti-time still wrapped in their timeline hissing in harmony, all the paradoxes they committed so casually humming along. They are a complex space-time event all in themself nowadays, possibly the most complex.

"I don't expect I'll remember this," they say to the shadows.

 _(no),_ she whispers, her voice loss and ash and the sound of something very young and very far away learning to cry. The sound of knowing pain, and knowing it will not stop. Grief and grey and silent forgetting. 

"Hello, Despair."

She does not step out of the shadows - she's simply always been there, like a statue, older than stone and dust and dark. Her head bent, her hair black and greasy, her naked shoulders carrying the weight of worlds. Her eyes are not white, like Destiny’s, or yellow wine and summer peaches, like Desire, or impossible Dreamlike night sky - they are, quite simply, human eyes. Human, and real, and not a single trace nor trail of hope in them. 

_(hello)_

"Your brother was wrong."

 _(destiny is never wrong)_ sigh the lonely corners and sharp biting edges of the universe.

"Then he lied. Because he said I'd meet all of you in turn. You're only the fourth." They say it listlessly, eyes empty and mirroring hers. They don’t say it, but it’s not like they need to: this is the end.

She does not reply. She does not need to, either.

"Destiny, Desire, Dream, Despair - who were the others?" they muse.

_(destruction. delirium -)_

"Or maybe not. I'll meet Destruction, I expect. And the last one? Death? I'll be seeing him soon enough."

Silence.

"So the Time Lords go to war, for the second and last time, against the Enemy, who are undefeated; god against god, and the universe burns with them." They recite it softly, like a poem or a dream, like Theta Sigma telling Destiny why they will run. "This must be a good time for you."

_(there are no good times or bad times. i simply am)_

"I know how that feels." They raise the chalice, torchlight glinting in alien eyes. "Four minutes. How much longer do you think I have?" They pause.

And then they turn, twisting, betraying one last lost scrap of hope. "Tell me one thing. Please."

 _(i will.)_ It’s not like she needs to hold anything back. The truth is worse than the lie, in most cases. And what benefit does she reap by cultivating despair? There is a reason she and Desire are twins - Desire is all question, all waiting, the delicate breathless moment before the release. Desire is lies and half-truths, dancing on the edge of comprehension, always almost and never there. Desire is in the wanting. 

Despair is the answer, and the answer hurts.

"Did Cass - " They swallow. "Did she despair, before she died?"

 _(no),_ whispers Despair, understanding in her endless eyes. She does not comfort, but she is not vicious either, and she was not always Despair. _(she died in defiance. she was proud)_

"That's good." They close his eyes, and the words escape like a last heartsbeat, like a being’s will to live falling apart in his throat. Red-raw and almost relieved - the wanting is over, the knowing is here. "That's good."

_(all things end)_

"And nobody knows it better than us. Stay with me?"

_(i am always here)_

When they open their eyes again, she's back in the shadows, half-forgotten, a fuzzy memory at the back of his vast and cluttered Time Lord mind. They take a last breath, raises the chalice to the sky. 

"Charley. C'rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Molly, friends, companions I've known, I salute you. Cass -” They don’t look at the body, but they don’t close their eyes either. “...I apologize."

 _(goodbye)_ , sings Despair from every crack in the walls. Despair never forgets, and she will remember the Doctor too, now that they are gone.

"Physician - heal thyself," hisses the nameless unreal thing, its last breath running out, and downs the elixir.

They drop the chalice with a clang, staggering slightly, the draught like time-fire down their throat. Stumble backwards, eyes blank and unseeing. Gold is sparking in their bones, stronger and wilder and hotter than they’ve ever felt before, worse even than the forced regeneration they suffered after the War Games, centuries ago. That was pain, and misery, and forgetting, but this is more: this is a regeneration that should never have happened. Fire flares in their eyes, blinding all their senses, they are disintegrating from the inside out - and then they are paper-thin, a container for endless golden heat, power rushing through them, tearing them apart. Their hearts stutter once. Twice. The world flickers and gasps and flashes blinding white, the sparks twist and spiral, climbing ever higher into a single impossible _flare_ -

_(White-out -)_

The Doctor is dead and buried, overtaken by Zagreus and the Other and Grandfather Paradox, all the creatures they were running from, all the monsters inside them. They died inside a crashing ship, next to the blue box that might have been their salvation, died trying to save one last life.

The Warrior lives, and now where they walk, stars go out.

(dark.)


	5. part seven: delirium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for gratuitous run-on sentences. Also: if Del's fuckup text doesn't work for you, _please_ tell me, especially if it's an accessibility software thing, so I can fix it or link you to a non-fuckup version or something.

The blast is fire and far-away, and the canned air tastes like gunpowder and rust on their tongue. For a single stretched-out moment they fly through the blood-orange air, and then the moment breaks, (the Moment breaks) and they hit the ground hard, lights flickering against the red Martian ground.

The Doctor, last of the Time Lords, the Oncoming Storm, on their tenth face now (eleventh but one of those wasn’t _them_ ) and still lost, and still going.

_(the last i am the last i am the)_

They’ve got their spacesuit on, the orange one they like and let's think about that and not about Donna or the four knocks and especially Not the three people burning behind them. Because they can't - they really  _can’t_ \- it's the one they got with Rose, on the impossible planet, back in the days when they knew what a smile meant - except that that’s dangerous territory too, _isn't_ it, and  _rose_ and  _don't go._ And, really, who are they kidding everything they’ve touched is dangerous territory. Literally, at 0this point; the War twisted so many paradoxes and recursion-loops and bits of anti-time into their worldlines that they infect everything - objects turn into complex space-time events simply by virtue of being _near_ them. Metaphorically too, because that’s the problem with being older than you can count properly: _everything_ reminds you of the past, and the Past is - the past is sealed-off territory. They don’t go they don’t think they keep running, like they’re running from Bowie Base -

Well, maybe she’ll get out alive, they think desperately, maybe all of them - Adelaide, Yuri, Steffi (except they mustn't think about the names the names are what make them human and they can't afford to be human, right now, except they can't afford _not_ to be either and really that's the problem isn't it?) Trying to convince themself, but they’re riding the edge of their own storm, a butterfly in the wind, any moment now they’ll lose their balance and down they go. No, no, they have to - Maybe they’ve influenced things enough already, it’s possible, complex space-time event, maybe it’s enough for the population of Bowie Base to get _out_ which would be-

(bad because time is Time but they'd be)

_alive maybe they'll all get out alive_ their vast Time Lord mind is racing, pulling them apart, and yes, it's saved them so many times but sometimes they wish there wasn't quite so much space to scream in -

Scream. (On the radio screams) but they aren’t listening. They aren’t. They really truly _aren’t._ Their mind races, running the same pointless computations over and over again, the same equations, getting a _no_  every time and they - don’t, they run them over and over in different parts of their brain, looking for answers and not finding them but maybe next time [the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results] the syncopated double-beat of hearts thrumming through their ears -

"We're losing oxygen!" howls the comm in their ear the sound of a girl sobbing riding in on the airwaves - and they know they should turn it off but they, they are - (this is a hell of a run-on sentence and then _got away from me a bit, yeah_ and it’s the past come back they they they they thhhhHHHAVE TO) -

[glitchout, blackout, overload and out]

\- they are floundering, gasping, the world gone red, everything roaring to a fever-pitch because -

\- can't they have to they can't -

_(yes, because there are laws.)_

And that's. It.

Everything.

Stops.

[silence.]

_(i'm not just a Time Lord i'm the last of the Time Lords)_

They aren’t breathing.

It's a reflex, or the closest thing to a reflex they have - the reverse of hyperventilation, almost. When the world threatens to overwhelm, a Time Lord stops every biological process. Slows their hearts to hibernation point. Lets the respiratory bypass come in smooth and silent, and the trance-state that comes with it - in an effort to save oxygen, all unnecessary functions are shut down. Leaving them space. To slow down.

_(but they died! the Time Lords, they all died!)_

Calm.

_(same old life, last of the Time Lords)_

Think.

_(and there are people in charge of those laws)_

_(they can't save bowie base. that is a truth, so true it could be a Truth. they can't)_

_(and the Time Lords died, took it all with them, and the walls of reality closed)_

_(the Moment, and they couldn't save anybody, and nobody lives, Rose, NOBODY LIVES, not even you)_

_(there are laws of time)_

_(i'm the last of the Time Lords)_

_(the last i am the last i am the)_

_(i'm the last of the Time Lords.)_

The world wavers like heat-warped glass, tinted red - by their mind or the visor or the dust-filled air, they can’t quite tell - and the red is so, so close to the familiar orange of the hills, the dark-russet sky like the color of the rock under silver trees - a symphony in scarlet. The mountains outside Cadon, and the walls were painted with that same rust-orange, the color of the sky -

the color the sky. The color the sky used to be.

_(yes, because there were laws)_

_(and it's gone now)_

_(I'm the Last of the Time Lords.)_

\- and make their decision.

"Hello," they say to the flaming sky.

They’ve finally gone insane, then. Only to be expected. It happened to most of their kind, sooner or later: quiet harmless bumbling insane or megalomaniacal insane or homicidal the-sound-of-drums insane. Something about being in tune with Time Herself, or just living so damn long, they suppose. They’re a bit earlier along than most, but then, they’ve seen more than all of the High Council combined, in their short millenium-or-so (and then there’s the issue that they aren’t actually nine hundred, that their wordline fractured to the extent where they don’t even know how old they are anymore, that it’s an impossible number warped too hard to count - )

They've been dreading this, really. They know that they're the most powerful thing left in the universe, the only member of the Higher Races and the weapon that won the War. They know that if they lose themself they let the Valeyard loose on a world with nothing left to stop them. They know. But the funny thing, the wonderful thing, the thing they could kiss and dance with on the edge of cliffs, is that they've suddenly stopped caring.

It's the good thing about being insane: you don't have to worry about going crazy anymore.

[ _h_ **_E_ ** **||** **0** ] says the girl.

They raise their head carefully, try to get a good look at her. That turns out to be harder than it should be. She's small, young, that's for certain, but _how_ young - fifteen? Twelve? Twenty? Tall or short? Red hair or blue? She’s harder to pin down than Desire - the world distorts around her, shockwave lines like heat above a fire.

She dances on the red Martian ground barefoot, blue-and-green-and-purple hair streaming out behind her, a pair of tarnished plastic butterfly wings tied to her back. Her clothes are ridiculously mismatched - an overcoat that's three sizes too big, a mesh shirt with Gallifreyan whorls and circles on it, all under a too-long knitted scarf that sends a stab of memory through their mind. She swirls in circles, timespace twisting into something worse than Jack Harkness around her - indescribably, horribly, _off_. Off-kilter. Off-target. Dislocated.

She blinks at them with mismatched eyes - one green, one blue with flecks of silver.

[y **o** u( rE **) o** **N;e** **_of t_ ** _hos$e pE_ **op** _|e, ar#n't_ yOU?] she ventures, voice warping and ringing through the air.

"Of who?" they manage, static flickering in their eyes. They can’t concentrate. The world doesn’t seem entirely real anymore, maybe because it isn’t.

[the th¡Ngs,] she says, waving her hands in the air. [t **H€ s** **7uFf** Y ** _o_** _N_ **_e$ w_ ** **!th fUn;Ny** h@ Ts,  & t♄ E.n T¡*re _m€  went_ **_k @ b L 0 O E ¥ ! !_ **  @nD tH€ **wH** **_°_ ** **|e eNt=ir** **_3 uN_ ** **_]v=R$_ ** _e w@_ s m¡NE f0r @ b¡T? s' **Fi/xEd** **n** _0_ W], she adds.

They shake their head, trying to clear out the nonsense, the advancing madness. "The Time Lords?" they say thickly, knowing she shouldn't be able to hear them, not through a suit and rebreather and in the thin Martian air-

[ **mMm** m= m **_♒:_ ** **_:m_ ** ], she hums, feet tracing patterns in the dust.[ **y(0)u:r** **E 7h** E d0€+o R.] She bends down, playing with the red sand. [ _d°ç=70r_ w♄O?]

They bury their head in their hands, trying to think, to stop the screaming.

[sHa] **/** **|** _t_ E]] **y0u @ $eC** r€t?]

"Okay," they breathe, listless.

[o **Ran}ge$** & lEM _;0ns a_ ** _Re @cTua_** **||** y t#E s@m€ th¡Ng,] she whispers conspiratorially. [tH **he tReEs g** 0T t#e _c°|oRs_ ** _m¡X_** _ed_ _uP. ww_ oU]d **y0u l¡k** ** _€_** ** _@_** _n oR@_ _ng_ E?] She frowns. [ _wH_ ** _@t\\\_** **s thA+** w0rĐ. i$ th#Re @ w°Rd f _{o}R w_ ** _H*en y0u=_** _Re_ _rEmEmbEr¡n_ ** _G_** ** _s0metthh\nG & re_** _@|iz€ yoU @c7u@]||y m_ ** _@de i7 uP, b_** ** _U_** _t fR @ $_ _eC0n_ Đ yøu tHhou **G#t i7  wA$  re@** \?]

"There is in Gallifreyan," they mumble.

She blinks at them. [ **wE\\\Re sPР** **_e@k_ ** _¡nG ga=|_ _|ifRe¥_ an.]

"Oh. Right." They are; it must be the first words of Gallifreyan they’ve spoken in decades. Since the Year that Never Was, or if you don’t count things that never happened it’s been a good couple of centuries -

_(the last, sings the constant horrible silence in their head, the hole where the [hivemind/connection] used to be, and the tardis is not enough to fill the gap. i am the last)_

"Are you," they try. "One of the Endless?"

She hums. Doesn't answer.

"Delight?"

Her head turns up at that word - eyes sharp and dark, and behind them a storm they can't imagine, a billion billion years of madness that sucks the breath right out of them. They wonder, momentarily, if this is what they look like, to humans -

[… **.no.** n0t _@n¥m_ ** _%oR_** **e** ,] she says, something alien in her eyes they can't quite identify. She's looking at them, searching for something in their face, and though they don’t know what she wants they get the feeling it’s not there.

[ _| d0n=_ ** _T u$u_** **@\\\y g** |V _e pє_ ** _Op]E m_** _¥ n@_ _mE_ ** _._** thhHeY Đo **N;7 r** ** _e@||y w-_** ** _Nt ¡t_** **. b** u7 y0U^Rє oN€  °F m]nE @|reA **Ð** ** _y, s0. yoU_** **kn\** \0w.]

"Delirium?"

She brightens.

[ **¥E$ !!! y0u(vE** g*0T iT! |e _7;s d@n)_ _CE @Ro{uN_ d] ¡N € _iRc\Es foR€_ **_v€R &_ ** **e\/E%r &e\**/er **!!** ]

"You're Delirium," says the Doctor. "Delirium of the Endless, sister to Destiny and Despair and Dream. Why do I keep _meeting_ you?"

[Đ **0** **€=7o** **R,** ] she singsongs. [ _e(\/_ **_er¥)oNe_ ** **_mEEt$_ ** _u$ @|]. e(\/er¥)o_ _Ne drE@m$, &d¡Es,  &dEs _ _;;_ **_p@¡r$._ ** **S'j** **Us7 thh** h@ _T u s€€_ _uS._ **_pR0p_ ** _Er_ _|_ y.] She tilts her head. [¥oU @rE _m¡_ _nE, (@re)n+T_ _y_ **_oU_ ** **_?_ ** **?? cR** **_@≥y d0€+_ ** _o_ R.]

"...Yeah," says the alien, and their name isn’t really, has never been _doctor._

**[oRan** **_}ge$_ ** _ & lEM; _ 0ns, ssssS¡Ng t # _e bE_ | |s oF **ST** **>** **_>. c|Em_ ** _EnT_ ss,] she recites, carefully. [ wHeN w¡|| y0u _p@y mE, s%_ ¡nG **th3** **bE]]$ oF** olÐ ß@ _iLe¥._ _hErE cOm_ €$ @ c _@nĐle, t0 L I G_ H T y0u t\\\o bE **Đ =  hErE c** **_Øme^$_ ** _@ (€h_ H0p)pEr t0 **cH** **_[0]p_ ** _oFF_ _y0ur_ **_hE@d. є_ ** **H0p** **!! є** H0p ! **! є** **H0p !!**!]

"That's an old rhyme.”

She stares at them. Opens her mouth. And the sound she makes is awful and distorted and too familiar - the hissing roar of an anti-time infection.

[͟͡ Ź̵̷a͜GŔe̸u͠$̶̕͡ ̵̴͜s!̶͟t̕͟S̸ ̴̢i̸Ns̷̶í̷Ð͞e ͢y̨̧͢0̵͞U̸͟͡r̛̛ h͟͜E͜@͡d̕ ́͏̧

̧̀͡z@̸͟g̛͢R̨E̡u͏s͜ ̸̡|̨i\̨͠/͢͢͡e̷͢s̢͝ ͏́á̶m̢͞0͠n̡͢҉G ͢ţ̕H̨̧̛e ͏̶d͞é̕@͜Ð̶

̴̀za̶͞͞G̡r̶͏3ư͠s̵̸ s͜E̶̢͝e$͘ y͝͞0u̕ ̧͝ì̷̷N ̴̡y͢0̕͝ư̢͢r͜ ̢bEd́ ̸͢

̶͠&̴ ̷̸̧e@͞t̴s ̨y̕0u ̸͢҉w͜͠H̸i|҉e͟ ỳ0u͞͏;̴̵R̨͘͝e ͏s|̷̵E͢E̸͜p̷iǸ̷̢g̕]

They don't move. Don’t breathe. Don’t blink, don’t think or - "Zagreus taking time apart - that's older. How do you - ?"

[¡; _Ve b33N t_ 0 g@//i%fr€y **, s** **7u >pIĐ** ,] she announces. [ _whh;h@t_ **_Ð_ ** **iÐ y0u (7h¡** n)K? ??]

"It's - gone. Now." They say the words without letting them mean anything, pulling tricks with the translation circuits so that they can’t actually understand what they’re - so they won’t lose it.

[i **k** **_Nøw_ ** **.** .] Her stare doesn’t waver, but her face goes almost nervous, biting at her lip. [| w@s _tH#_ Re.]

"You're the - the goddess of madness?"

[ **όhHh, w** **_E;;;re_ ** _n_ _0_ 7 goĐ $.] She grins at them through long mauve hair, curling down to the floor, tracing quiet patterns in the sand. [ w°u|d y0u l¡ **=Ke @** jE||¥ b@b¥?]

They stifle an awful, insane giggle. "I'm in a spacesuit."

[oh ** _H.* rIg#t._** ] She considers. [ _d0 u_ ** _w@n7 t0_** **Kkn*w a** **_$e€r_** _e7, r[aGGeĐ]_ _y_ m@N?]

They freeze, blink, something flaring in the worldlines. "What - "

For a moment her hair is a flaring orange-red, and then it snaps back to purple. [sHe” _$_ _1 oF m¡n_ E t0 O. wi|| b3.] She swirls around, plastic wings fluttering in the wind. [bu7 _$_ **_o @rE aaa_ ** _@|_ | thHe OtH &e **r$. ¥0uR fR¡{** **_eNd}$, y_ ** _o=uR eNeM_ ie$. e\/e **N** **the T** **_@R?Đ|S, @ l_ ** _i77|e b¡T_ . **e\/er¥bo** Dy e\/eR.] She shakes her head, stops spinning. Closes her eyes and paws at her ears, as if to push something away. Then she whimpers - a horrible broken sound like everyone who has ever wished they hadn’t survived. [m@k **Kke i7** **_$_ ** **_ToP_ ** **, d0€+o** R.]

"What is it?" they stutter, but they know the answer, can hear it at the edge of their mind -

She glances up at them with one blue eye. _{The heartsbeat}_ she whispers, in _the Master's voice_ \- not his body's voice, his mind-voice, the smooth cracked-glass purr that used to follow them across the universe. _{Can you hear the drums, Doctor?}_ she hums, fingers tapping in the dust.

And they _can_ \- they can hear the heartsbeat, the drumbeat, the bass line under the skin of the universe. Some part of them thinks they can see the stars flicker in time with it but at this point they might well be hallucinating - it’s hard to tell, it’s always hard to find madness from the inside. Death and Despair and Destruction are clear and sharp, at least, but Delirium sneaks up on you - but they can _hear_ it, and the sound is sheer raging insanity. They realizes that they’re trying to hold their hands over their ears, despite the fact that they’re wearing a helmet, but it’s not like it would matter anyway, it’s not like anything could stop the noise -

[ _@|| m¡n_ **_E, a_ ** **]] m|n3** ,] singsongs Delirium. [a\\\ mi;Ne.]

They can't think, can't breathe, head swimming with memories, hearts drowned out by the constant awful drums. They are losing the balance and they can't take it, they _can't_ \- the entire world is escalating, the beat speeds and shivers and explodes -

They let go.

" _Stop it!_ " The sound is huge and desperate and ragged-raw, snapping the world almost back to normality.

They take a breath, eyes wild. "Stop it! The Master's _dead,_ they're all dead, every Time Lord who ever lived is dead and _I killed them!"_ She's gone, and they’re wheeling in off-kilter circles, shrieking madness at the red-stained sky, at the frozen fire around them.

_(the last i am the last i am the)_

No, there she is, sitting on a rock, head buried in her hands, hair shaved short and white against her skull, wearing a massive leather overcoat.

[��������] comes out, a soft nothing whimper like fear, like _please_ -

_"Stop,"_ they cry out, one last time, and that’s when things break.

Her head snaps up, mismatched eyes vicious, and she _roars_ it,  a wall of distorted sound like a radio in a blender -

**_[ E X T E R M I N A T E ! ]_ **

\- glares at them, and they can feel their mind collapsing -

**_[ E X T E R M I N A T E ! ]_ **

And for a terrible drawn-out moment they _believe_ it. They believe the word and all that it implies. For perhaps the first time in their life, they hear the Daleks clearly, without the filter of sanity, and they understand - they understand living life always burning, hate and rage melting you from the inside out, understand being made and born of war, and the only way to make it stop is to make _everything_ stop, to make the universe frozen and silent and empty - understand the clean cold release of watching planets burn -

The Doctor screams.

Every one of more than twenty highly sophisticated senses is lying to them. Their head splits down the middle, and the chains are gone again, the rules meaningless, useless, senseless. The monster let loose again and even _Time_ has turned to static and mist around them. They can't even see the impossible whirlpool _factness_ of the Fixed Point anymore, just mind-bending nothing, and that's when they understand.

"I can't do it."

They drag themself upright, eyes fire and fever-bright, snarling the words through gritted teeth. "I can not, will not do it. I'm _sick_ of not listening. I'm _sick_ of watching and waiting and hoping and failing, of watching people die. I'm done with laws and rules. I've saved Earth and the Universe a million times, and this is what I get?”

_(I'm the Last of the Time Lords.)_

"But you know what I can do? I can save those people. I can save Donna. I can get Rose back properly this time. I'll deal with the Reapers if and when they show up. I can get Susan back, and the Laws of Time -"

They shout it, ranting at the darkness, like a wild thing, the Doctor breaking for the second and final time. "- _can go to hell!"_

They will save all of them, save everyone, paradoxes be damned, and let's be honest they couldn't care less if it killed them. "There's no one to stop me.” And finally, finally, they say it, into the sky, a title and an inheritance -

"I'm the Last of the Time Lords."

Delirium isn't a thing made of grief and screams anymore; she's a girl with broken plastic wings, standing in front of them, eyes bright. She doesn’t need to scare them. She doesn’t need to talk to them. They’re one of hers, after all.

She flickers once, like a video glitch, like an image breaking up.

**[Doctor,]** she says, the sound coming from very far away, echoing down forgotten darkness. **[He will knock four times]** she whispers, and then there is no more.

Just red Mars air.

The Doctor’s eyes are wide and unseeing and lit from the inside, breath hissing through their teeth, all semblance of humanity gone, something other showing through. They’re fairly sure that no time has passed. Frozen, a perfect time-stop, and it's still going, still stuck in the space between instants. Maybe it'll stay frozen for another minute, thirty seconds, less.

Long enough to get to the airlock.

Long enough to save them. To save them all.

_("You said we die! For the future!" screams Adelaide, and they)_

_(Yes, because there are laws. There are Laws of Time. And once upon a time there were people who enforced those laws. But they died! They all died! Do you know who that leaves?_ **_ME_ ** _! The Laws of Time are_ mine _, and THEY WILL_ **OBEY** _ME!)_


End file.
